Chapter 21 Part II : Experimental methods and paradigms for prosodic analysis

There is a long tradition of experimental research in the field of prosody, as different aspects of speech production and perception related to prosody have often been part of traditional laboratory and phonetics investigation. However, in recent years, the development of a set of laboratory tools to investigate language performance and its neurocognitive basis has prompted a new experimental approach to prosody research, in addition to the linguistic approaches that have traditionally been used. This new approach encompasses a wide range of methodological paradigms such as acoustic analysis of speech productions, direct measurement of articulator movements, judgments and reaction times obtained during identification and discrimination tasks, measurements of brain activity and patterns of attention in babies.